Selected Critical Writings

Book excerpt: 'A critic must be able to feel the impact of a work of art in all its complexity and force. To do so, he must be a man of force and complexity himself...' 'A critic must be emotionally alive in every fibre, intellectually capable and skilful in essential logic, and then morally very honest.' These comments by D. H. Lawrence are as close a description as any of himself as a critic. They come from his essay on fellow novelist John Galsworthy, and there are many other pieces on novels and novelists in this selection. But Lawrence's range of genres extends to poetry and plays andpaintings, and his critical writing encompasses an enormous variety of subjects, from Aeschylus and the Apocalypse to symbolism and syphilis, for his nterests are philosophical , psychological, religious, moral, sociological, historical and cultural as well as literary and artistic. This selectionis a treasure-trove of 'thought adventures' by one of literature's liveliest critical spirits.